Hilton Lakes, 23/06/13

I have now returned home from University at Loughborough back to the joyful north-east of England near Middlesbrough - hence the blog name change.

I have a job lined up beginning in July in Hertfordshire, which will lead to another blog name change in the next month. 

Today I thought I would try out somewhere new, and decided to give the Hilton fishing lakes at Hilton near Yarm a try. It is a relatively new man-made venue, only open a few years, so there are no monster fish in there yet, but supposedly a good amount of young carp. 

Hilton fishing lakes

There are 2 lakes - both roughly circular with a central island, about as wide as a canal. There aren't really set pegs as such, but there would be plenty of space even if the venue got busy - which it wasn't today for good reason; it was blowing a gale and thunderstorm showers forecast.

However, pitching a wind break upwind of the chosen peg made the trip much more pleasant than it could have been. Wind breaks are cheaper, more versatile and much bigger than umbrellas which makes them a much better option. 

As I was hitting a totally new venue to me, I decided to keep the method as simple as possible - with bog-standard float fished sweetcorn. I was using a 13ft Maver carp rod, a small cheap reel as it was loaded with the lightest spool I have (4lb main line) and a waggler float. I used a size 16 Drennan wide gape hook to nylon hook length connected to the mainline with a size 14 swivel. I prefer swivels to loop-to-loop knots as I find hard fighting carp can really twist the line up during a fight and cause tangles after unhooking. 

I spent a good amount of time plumbing the depth of the peg, and found that a slope dropped away from the nearside bank down to about half way across to the island and a depth of around 7-8 feet. The bottom was then flat up to the edge of the island. Fishing against an island always seems an obvious choice but there was just too much wind for float fishing at that distance.

I chose to fish toward the bottom of the slope, setting the float to the full depth, and then dragging the bait up the slope a little way with an anchor shot 6 inches above the bait to indicate when the bait was resting on the slope. The thinking on this method was to loose feed the slope with corn, hemp and groundbait, which would fall down the slope and settle toward the bottom. Patrolling carp would then scour the slope for particles, see the hook bait, take it and then move back down giving a clear positive bite indication. 

After fishing for around half an hour, the first bite came and after an extremely good fight turned out to be a beautiful 2lb 3oz mirror carp.

First carp of the day

After this came a 14 oz common bream:

A common bream

And a couple of juvenile tench:

Little tench

I increased the groundbait/loose feed rate to try feed off the smaller fish a bring the carp into the swim. This resulted in the smallest carp I have ever caught, 7oz:

Baby carp

After this the bigger carp moved in resulting in 2 common carp of 2lb 1oz, 1 common of 2lb 5oz and finally the largest fish of the day a common of exactly 3lbs:

Biggest carp of the day

These carp were all in pristine condition and fought well above their weight. Without the heavy showers and thunderstorms I'm sure there would have been many more quality fish caught today.

I will definitely be returning to Hilton lakes before I move down south, and if you live in the north-east of England you should definitely give it a go, just be prepared for your arms to ache when you get home.

Hilton fishing lakes website: http://www.hiltonfishinglakes.com/

Fish in distress

I went fishing for a few hours today on the canal at Swingbridge Road. The fishing was terrible, caught one very small chub on maggot - but the boat traffic was unbelievable. 

As I was fishing by the reeds, I spotted a large fish in the reeds, wiggling around but not moving anywhere. I assumed it was a spawning fish so left it alone for a few minutes, but it had not moved ten minutes later. I had found loads of loose thick monofilament line all over the floor around the area - picking them up to take home for the bin - and so began to think that the large fish could be wrapped up in loose line. Fortunately I had a landing net with me, and putting the net under the fish I could feel resistance from the reeds - it was trapped in loose line. I pulled up reeds that were moving as I tried lifting the net and eventually managed to free the fish from the reeds at least. 

I got the fish on the bank and immediately found thick monofilament wrapped around the fishes head and behind the pectoral fins. The fish was obviously in a lot of distress so I quickly cut line from around its body and freed it. 

3 pound bream free of line

I took the picture above and then released it back into the water. It must have been trapped for some time, as it can be seen in the picture that there is a large amount of swelling around where the line was tight. 

There was no hook in sight, so it was not a fish that had snapped off a light line. This was caused by pure negligence and laziness of so called 'anglers' leaving loose line lying around, it getting caught up in reeds and then fish getting wrapped up and potentially killed. 

TAKE LOOSE LINE HOME AND CHUCK IT IN THE BIN

Some may be thinking the trap could have been intentionally set by a poacher. Well it happens around here, there were signs of poaching in the area - i.e. sticks stuck in the bank side to hold nets - but from the way it was all just tangled up in the reeds I do not think it was intentional. Of course it could have been collateral from poachers chucking loose line around without a care in the world, one likes to hope anglers take more care. 

Next time you get a birds nest on your reel and you cut it off - put it in your pocket, please. Or you're worse than a poacher - killing fish out of pure contempt.  

Osiers - First session on the Soar

I think it was November by the time I decided to have a go fishing the river Soar. I had a good look on google maps for the best looking stretches, and decided on 'Osiers', which is south of Loughborough, just before the river joins the canal at Pillings lock. 

I just wanted to try trotting a maggot along some nice swims and see if there were many fish in that part of the river. I took some castors with me as well; if the fish were feeding well I would go for a larger bonus fish with a castor and maggot hookbait. 

I started off fishing peg 12 shown below, as there was a large sunken tree giving cover and blocking the flow of the water creating a nice holding area for fish.

Osiers peg 12

This spot turned out to be a good choice, as I started getting fish every cast, mostly small roach and dace with the occasional perch. I even spotted a very young jack pike snooping around in the margins, and I bet the parents won't live too far away!

Casting just beyond the sunken tree on the edge of the slack flow seemed to produce the best fish, one of them being this nice dace:

Soar dace

 I decided to explore the venue a bit more and have a go at another more challenging peg. The area just after the railway bridge seemed to deepen up a lot, slowing the flow so I decided to fish there suspecting there could be a few chub and bream in the area. 

Peg 7 just downstream of railway bridge

The water in this peg is very well oxygenated, leading to shoals of bleak hanging around the surface, making it very difficult to get the hookbait to sink before one of them taking it. As a result I ended up catching mainly just bleak for the rest of the day, although a few of them were quite impressive size for their species. However, using the castor for a while managed to result in a few chub, although not very big. 

Soar chub

I also hooked a decent bream but unfortunately didn't have the line strength to get it away from snags and it managed to free itself. At least I know they are there - I'm still looking for my first ever river bream.

I love Osiers - I have been a few times since and it has never once disappointed. I also love how far away it is from anywhere - there are very few dog walkers which makes a nice change from the canal. It seems quite difficult to get too with lots of gear as well, so it isn't heavily fished and you can tell by the way the fish take a hookbait with no suspicions. 

If the river ever clears up - which it wont soon as its supposed to rain the next few days - I might just get back there. 

For anyone who is interested and want to know more, the Osiers stretch of the Soar is on the Loughborough Soar Angling Society ticket. 

Loughborough canal, 16/02/13

Today the river was high so again I headed to the canal. I originally planned to fish the Swingbridge Road section, but there was a match on, I assume a rescheduled match originally planned for the river. 

I decided to head down to the Bishops Meadow section, and aim for some larger fish as I have caught plenty of small fish around the area there before. As the water was very coloured, I wanted to try some flavoured luncheon meat for some chub and bream or possibly tench and barbel. 

Bishops meadow section

There was very little interest for a while, and eventually I reverted to my insurance policy of mixed maggots. I had a size 16 hook on for the luncheon meat, so I stuck a red and white maggot on the hook together and continued fishing. The effect was instantaneous: bites every minute. 

The double maggot seemed to encourage the larger fish, and in 2 hours I managed a nice haul of around 50 fish, most being roach of around 4-5 oz. 

Typical roach today

Other catches included silver bream, perch, and bleak - one of which was quite an impressive size for its species:

Impressive bleak

One of the silver bream

After the couple of hours I ran out of maggots, and did not fancy going back to luncheon meat, so I decided to try a bit of spinning for large perch or pike. I was not expecting much, as I have never caught anything on spinner in fresh water, and the water was very coloured making it difficult for a lure to be seen. 

However, today was just about to get better. About half an hour into starting to fish with a lure, I thought I had snagged the bottom again. Just as I was about to get in a huff, the line peeled off my reel and I realised I was into something big. After a fight of about ten minutes, I landed my first ever pike!

First ever pike

I didn't have any scales with me, but I guessed the fish to be around 4 - 5 pounds. Getting the lure out was a bit scary with the incredible set of teeth this monster has, but I have seen on videos how to do this and had forceps in my bag as always.

Now I had the technique sorted, I continued fishing, and hooked an even bigger monster! I fought with it for around 20 minutes, and as it was surfacing I could see the hook was only just caught in the outside of the jaw. Unfortunately this hold was not enough and he managed to free himself before I could land him. I will get him next time!

So today was very successful with two very different styles of fishing. I wonder if the match blokes sat for hours with their daft poles caught anything all day? One thing is for sure, they will not have had anywhere near as much fun as me!